medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith, slightly updated from a post of 30. Nov. 2012, a brief notice on Andrew and on relics said to be his:
Andrew the Protoclete, apostle (d. 1st cent.). Like his brother Simon Peter today's well known saint of the Regno was a disciple of St. John the Forerunner before becoming an adherent of Jesus of Nazareth. According to Eusebius, he preached in Scythia, by which latter quite possibly is meant the Roman province of this name erected by Diocletian in today's southeastern Romania and northeastern Bulgaria (Ukrainians and Russians think otherwise, of course). Theodoret has A. preaching in Greece. From at least the fourth century onward it has been believed that he suffered martyrdom at Patras.
In 357 relics venerated as A.'s were brought from Patras to Constantinople's church of the Holy Apostles. Scots believe that in the eighth century their St. Regulus (Rule) brought A.'s relics from Constantinople to today's St Andrews in Fife. Two illustrated pages on the St Rule Tower and the ruins of St Andrews cathedral at St Andrews are here:
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/standrews/cathedral/index.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Andrews_Cathedral
But all in Campania know that in 1208 A.'s remains were brought from Constantinople to Amalfi, where they are now housed in the cathedral dedicated to him. Matthew of Amalfi's account of this translation, as published by the comte de Riant in its later thirteenth-century revised version, repays reading in several respects (this will be found in vol. 1 of succeeding versions of Riant's _Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitanae_ ([1876; 1877-78]).
Of course, neither Matthew nor his reviser had any idea that in the 1460s the Despot of Morea, Thomas Palaeologus, would bring with him into exile in Italy a head said to be that of St. Andrew, that Pius II would acquire it for the Roman church and -- seizing upon this capital opportunity -- would use it as a propaganda device for his projected crusade against the Turks, that in this context Cardinal Bessarion would give a welcoming speech to A. in the apostle's partial presence in 1462 (a heady moment, no doubt), and that in 1964 Paul VI would "return" this relic plus a finger bone from A.'s relics in Amalfi to the Greek Orthodox church in Patras. Some visuals:
a) the opening page of Pius II's account of the head's reception in Italy -- with an illuminated initial showing Pius holding a bust of A. -- as transmitted in a roughly contemporary collection of writings by this pontiff (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 5565A, fol. 1r):
http://tinyurl.com/c6n36lm
b) two views of A.'s skull reliquary in Patras:
http://www.rel.gr/photo/displayimage.php?album=9&pos=29http://str1.crestin-ortodox.ro/foto/1265/126484_capul-sfantul-andrei-patras.jpg
Still, the Roman Catholic Church has an upper part of a skull among A.'s putative relics at Amalfi (perhaps the head now in Patras was only one of A.'s spares). Herewith some views of it taken when it was on display at Sant'Andrea della Valle in Rome in 2008 for the 800th anniversary of A.'s translation to Amalfi:
http://tinyurl.com/2ej6ktphttp://tinyurl.com/269p9blhttp://tinyurl.com/2cwc7rnhttp://tinyurl.com/2ce4een
A.'s right foot is said to be in the monastery of Agios Andreas on Kefalonia. Other relics believed to be his are in the skete of St. Andrew on Mt. Athos, a Russian foundation honoring one of that country's patron saints. Here's a view of a reliquary belonging to that monastery and said to contain A.'s skull:
http://serko.net/50/athos/KaryesandStAndrewsSkete/images/relicofstandrew.jpg
Andrew the Polycephalous, perhaps.
The Vatopedi monastery on Mt. Athos has what is described as a relic of A.'s right hand:
http://www.rel.gr/photo/displayimage.php?album=9&pos=21
The cathedral of Trier has a later tenth-century portable altar (ca. 980) made for and containing what is said to be the sole of one of A.'s sandals:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/54629101@N04/5059266087
From at least 1250 until 1979, when they were transferred to A.'s church at Patras, wood fragments believed to be relics of his cross were preserved in the church of St. Victor at Marseille. Herewith some views of them on display in St. Petersburg during a tour in 2013 in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus:
http://www.diakonima.gr/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/stauros-ag.Andrea.jpghttp://eu.greekreporter.com/files/photo_1373730265670-1-HD.jpghttp://www.pravoslavie.ru/sas/image/101284/128410.p.jpg?rnd=460961
Best,
John Dillon
On 11/30/14, "Heintzelman, Matthew" wrote:
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> https://www.facebook.com/604882972899463/photos/a.624764970911263.1073741830.604882972899463/744746362246456/?type=1&theater
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> Saint Andrew, preaching from the cross:
> "Having said these words, he shed his garments and gave them to the executioners, who fixed him to the cross as they had been commanded. For two days Andrew hung there alive and preached to twenty thousand people. On the third day the crowd began to threaten the proconsul Aegeus with death, saying that a saintly, gentle man should not be made to suffer so; and Aegeus came to have the saint released. Seeing him, Andrew exclaimed: 'Why have you come here, Aegeus? If to seek forgiveness, you will be forgiven; but if to take me down from the cross, know that I will not come down alive, for already I see my king awaiting me." When the soldiers tried to free him, they could not even touch him: their arms fell powerless at their sides." (Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend. Princeton, 2012 reprint; pp. 17-18)
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> Peace,
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>
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> Matt Heintzelman
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>
>
> Curator, Austria/Germany Study Center; Rare Book Cataloger, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML)
> Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7300
>
> Phone: 320-363-2795; Fax: 320-363-3222
>
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion(http://www.hmml.org/" target="1">http://www.hmml.org
>
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